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DEATH RETURNS A BOOK
by Marion Moore Hill
Pemberly Press, September 2008
286 pages
$17.95
ISBN: 0977191362


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Librarian Juanita Wills is bent on writing a history of her hometown, Wyndham, Oklahoma. While researching past events there, Juanita comes across a story about the murder of a black teenager in 1959. Luther Dunlap lived in Bryson‛s Corner, a black community near what was then the all-white town of Wyndham. At a time when segregation was still the rule in America, Luther would never have entered Wyndham alone at night. But Luther‛s mangled body was found on the Wyndham High School athletic field where only days before he‛d beaten an all-white team in a track and field event. Luther‛s killers were never found, and Juanita suspects that‛s because the police didn‛t try very hard to solve the case. Resolved to include this shameful episode in her history of the town, Juanita asks some of the older residents of Wyndham and Bryson‛s Corner to recall their memories of the murder.

One of the people Juanita intends to interview is Samuel Davis, a man who grew up with Luther and knew him well. When Davis suddenly dies of food poisoning the day before he‛s to speak with her, Juanita immediately suspects he was murdered. The bread that caused his death is traced to an elderly woman in Wyndham, one of Juanita‛s friends and the least likely person to commit murder. Juanita‛s boyfriend, Detective Lieutenant Wayne Cleary, warns Juanita to steer clear of the investigation. Being on the snoopy side, Juanita ignores his advice and begins to dig even deeper into the unresolved Dunlap case.

A house fire gives Juanita the opportunity to extend some down-home hospitality to her assistant librarian‛s sister while repairs are made to her home. Juanita soon learns that Martha was in high school at the time of Dunlap‛s murder. Martha is reluctant to answer questions about the murder, but that doesn‛t faze Juanita. Almost no one in town wants to talk about the killing, and the people of Bryson‛s Corner seem equally reluctant to discuss it. Nevertheless, Juanita pushes on with her investigation. Then she‛s injured in what appears to be a planned accident at a state fair. Is Juanita getting too close to the truth? Is her prying making someone nervous enough to kill again? Never one to quit easily, Juanita continues to snoop into the past in hopes of changing the future.

This is the second book in Marion Moore Hill‛s Scrappy Librarian series featuring Juanita Wills. Moore‛s research on black towns in Oklahoma shows in this tale, as does her knowledge of the area as a whole. Juanita is a somewhat annoying protagonist who doesn‛t seem to realize – or perhaps doesn‛t care – that her constant questions often cause physical and emotional pain to the elderly citizens of both Wyndham and Bryson‛s Corner. While her intentions are noble, Juanita‛s methods seem at times hard-hearted.

Amazingly, no matter how much she antagonizes both blacks and whites, these small town citizens always let her return to question them again. One would suspect they‛d slam their doors in her face. But no, each and every one of them is outwardly polite even though Juanita has no official standing as an officer of the law, and her inquiries are often less questions than accusation. The plethora of secondary characters in the story can sometimes be confusing, some of them being introduced with no supporting backstory. Nevertheless, this book should satisfy most amateur sleuth fans, especially those that prefer protagonists of the more outspoken sort.

Reviewed by Mary V. Welk, May 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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